Big oil companies love to talk about a cleaner future — and how they're going to make it happen. Over the last two years, Shell, BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil have pledged to zero out their carbon emissions by 2050. Watching Exxon's algae-heavy advertisements, you'd think the company is swapping oil barrels for biofuel farms. Shell's website is sprinkled with pictures of solar panels and claims that it's taking action to create "a more sustainable, renewable, energy-rich, lower carbon future."
At a closer look, however, all this starts to seem hollow. According to a recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One, there's a big disconnect between oil companies' words and behavior when it comes to climate change. Researchers in Japan analyzed how those four big oil companies, accounting for 10 percent of global carbon emissions since 1965, talked about climate change in their annual reports from 2009 to 2020. Then they scrutinized whether the companies had taken concrete measures to cut down on fossil fuel production and to shift their business to clean energy production.
